


The Horrors of Painsomnia

by EmpressofKingfishers



Category: Original Work
Genre: Kikimora - Freeform, Mora, Nightmares, POV Female Character, POV First Person, Supernatural Elements, mare - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:47:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28119414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmpressofKingfishers/pseuds/EmpressofKingfishers





	The Horrors of Painsomnia

It all began on Sunday, August 23, 2020. A week after my fifteenth birthday.

I went to bed, tired and expecting to have a peaceful night’s rest.

Around midnight, the entire house was woken up by my howls of pain.

I was fast asleep, dead to the world when I woke up. At first, I didn’t know what had woken me up. But that’s when my brain caught up to my body. My whole body was in pain. My nervous system felt like it was on fire; my muscles were torn, my head crushed, my bones shattered, and my lungs were burning.

I was rushed to the hospital and examined.

The doctors didn’t know what to do to help me. My brain was telling me that my body was badly damaged. But it wasn’t. Everything was fine. There was nothing wrong with me. At least, physically.

The doctors weren’t sure how to help me, so they decided to give me some medicine to help ease the ‘pain’. Right before they administered it, however, the pain suddenly went away, and I passed out, mentally and physically exhausted.

Positive that it was a one-time thing, I was sent home.

But I was back again the next night, having woken up the household yet again by screaming bloody murder.

My parents were worried sick about me, but the doctors were starting to think I was faking it for attention. Oh yes, I totally value getting attention over sleeping. What complete bullshit.

“It must be in your head,” Doctor Kim said, rubbing his chin, “I’m not sure what we can possibly do for you. At best we can supply a medicine that helps you sleep better at night.” He smiled at me, but behind that smile, I could tell exactly what he was thinking. ‘ _Dumb girl, coming here and wasting my time. Nothing’s wrong with her_.’

Desperate to help me, Mom and Dad quickly agreed to the medicine.

It barely made a difference. Even though the medicine was supposed to put me in a deep sleep, I woke back up screaming in pain.

Tests were done on me, trying to figure out if there was something wrong in my brain, like a tumor. Or maybe damaged nerves. Or maybe something else? I spent hours surfing the web, trying to figure out what I had.

The closest I could get was painsomnia, the inability to sleep due to pain. Granted, I only felt pain when I woke up from sleeping. But maybe it was some form of painsomnia. After all, each body was unique with its own set of problems, so even illness and diseases were unique in a lot of cases. This was probably what was happening. Painsomnia isn’t well known, so that’s probably why the doctors didn’t know what was wrong with me.

I started taking painkillers before settling down to sleep. It didn’t stop the pain, but it made it less severe, so I wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night screaming. Either the pain would go away on its own or I’d pass out from exhaustion. I’d be able to sleep a bit more.

However, sleep started to become elusive.

I’d lay awake, staring at the ceiling. My brain knew what was waiting for me if I fell asleep. Even taking melatonin pills my brain fought off sleep. Around 1 am I’d finally nod off.

Only to wake back up around 4 am, unable to properly breathe because I was in such pain.

It was only natural that my grades started to decline. My teachers emailed my parents, asking why I was nodding off in class and slow to answer questions. Before, I was an excellent student. But now, I was at risk of failing my classes.

Even after drinking caffeine, I found myself fighting off sleep during the day.

Maybe it was the combination of being outside all day, I had been on my feet for several hours, and sleep deprivation that caused me to fall into a deep, deep sleep. I thought I would stay up another night, but after a minute or so upon laying down, I was asleep.

Something woke me up. I’m not sure what. I felt hungry, so maybe that’s the reason. Yawning, I swung my feet over the bed and got up. I’d drink some water and head straight back to bed. Water would help fight off the hunger.

It suddenly dawned on me.

I wasn’t in pain.

Eyes widening in amazement, I glanced down and gasped.

My body wasn’t normal. Instead of a solid body made of flesh and bones, I was a wispy shadow that barely resembled a feminine, human body. Just below the knees, my legs faded away into nothing, so I looked like I was floating. Or it’s because I was floating. I looked like a shadow person.

Panicked, I spun around and faced my bed.

My body was there, sleeping on its right side, and facing the wall. My usual sleeping position. My body was breathing, so that meant I was still alive.

My shadowy hand touched my body’s hair.

Ok.

Ok.

I was probably having an out of body experience caused by… sleep deprivation and exhaustion? Or maybe I was having a lucid dream. Or maybe, just maybe, I was astral projecting. That happens to people, right?

Both intrigued and weirded out, I made my way to Mom and Dad’s room. As usual, their bedroom door was closed. Interestingly, I couldn’t really get a firm grip on the doorknob. I had my shadowy hand on it; I could feel the doorknob. It wasn’t locked, so I couldn’t understand why I was having trouble.

A bit miffed I couldn’t properly turn the knob, I lowered myself to the floor and peered under the gap beneath the door. Scooting forwards, I managed to squeeze myself under the gap. It was a peculiar feeling, I could feel my body change, making me misty enough to slip through the small space.

Straightening up, I moved towards Mom and Dad. They were both fast asleep and facing away from each other. “Mom,” I hissed, crouching by the side of the bed, “Mom, wake up! Something happened to me.” When I didn’t get a response, I reached out and touched Mom’s shoulder.

A zap of electricity went through me, making me yelp and jerk back and clutch my hand to my chest. It didn’t hurt, but it was very startling. That’s when I noticed Mom’s face had gone from peaceful to stressed. Although asleep, I could see her jaw clenching, eyes moving, and her eyebrows were pulled together. Clearly, she was having a nightmare. She started whimpering, so I reached out to touch her shoulder again.

Instead of getting shocked, I could feel something happening to me. My hunger was slowly fading away, I was feeding off of her bad dreams. Somehow I was getting energy from Mom, and it was addicting.

Wondering if it could also happen to Dad, I raced around to his side of the bed and touched his shoulder. Similar to Mom, I could see Dad’s peaceful dream, if he had one, turn into a nightmare. I felt like I was on cloud nine. I had never felt like this before. Their nightmares were like food to me.

Feeling satisfied, I left the room and went back to bed. I was convinced, now, that this was one hell of a dream. _I’ve never had such a cool dream before_ , I thought to myself, grinning.

I was shocked to learn, the next morning, that both Mom and Dad had nightmares. Mom couldn’t remember hers, and Dad’s was about his dream family getting murdered and him fleeing from the murderer.

My younger brother, Jamie, had noticed the bags under my eyes were gone, and I looked refreshed. That was true. I had woken up feeling energized. Mom and Dad were enthusiastic, thinking that my strange condition had finally gone away.

 _Maybe my dream last night was my brain’s way of saying I’m fine_ , I told myself, trying to convince myself it was only a dream and a coincidence about the nightmares.

That night I was proven wrong.

Once more I woke up, detached from my human body as shadowy figure, and was hungry. No, not hungry. I was **starving**.

This time, I gave Jamie nightmares.

The night after that, I slipped out of the house and into the house next door. For the first time in months, I was able to go to bed at a normal time, sleep through the night, and wake up refreshed. Hell, even before my painsomnia episodes I would wake up feeling groggy and slow. I was excelling in my classes now, and I no longer took painkillers before bed. My life was turning over a new leaf, and I didn’t want it to end.

It never occurred to me that I should try and figure out what I am, or what I was doing. I was too caught up in feeling normal for the first time in ages. *I’m not hurting anyone,* I argued against myself when I was starting to wonder if I was doing something bad, *They only get a little bit scared. It’s perfectly fine.* I wasn’t dangerous, not at all. And nightmares don’t hurt people.

Each night I’d visit a different house in the neighborhood. Everything was going perfectly.

Until I visited Mrs. Morrison, an elderly woman who lived three streets down. Everyone in the neighborhood adored her, including myself.

When I first crept into her house, the only nightmares I had consumed were usually created by me. Early on I noticed I was the one to cause people’s nightmares by standing close to them. When I got to Mrs. Morrison’s room, I noticed she was already in the middle of a nightmare. When I touched her forehead, the energy was different. It was more delicious than nightmares caused by me. Before, it would give me a bit of energy, and I’d get more by moving onto the next person in the house. The first time I took energy from Mom, I thought it filled me up. But actually, it didn’t. I only thought it did because of how new it was.

This time, however, I didn’t need to go to another person. Mrs. Morrison’s nightmare filled me up entirely. And I wanted to have more.

I must have blacked out because when I came to, I was practically laying on top of Mrs. Morrison, my wispy, dark hands around her throat. Disgusted with myself, I scrambled off her bed and flew back to my room. When I arrived, I climbed into bed and laid on my body, curling up into the same exact position as the body.

I woke up feeling hyper and jittery. _Probably the effects of that powerful feeding_ , I thought, once more getting out of bed. I noticed on my clock that it was already 12 pm. I must have slept in because of the feeding.

Walking downstairs, Mom greeted me. “Honey, I’ve got bad news,” she began, “Mrs. Morrison died last night. A heart attack, her son thinks,” she sighed and shook her head, “What a shame. She was such a lovely lady.”

I froze.

No way, that couldn’t be my fault, right? She was an old lady, of course, she would die sooner or later. It was a coincidence, nothing more to it. ‘*You’re wrong about that,*’ a tiny, creepy voice whispered in my head, ‘ _You killed her. Gave her the heart attack, you murderer_.’ It cruelly laughed, leaving me horrified.

Turning on my heel, I scrambled back up the steps and made a beeline to my cellphone. With shaking hands, I unlocked it and started typing into Google, ‘Creatures that cause nightmares.’

There, I learned the truth about what I was. About how evil I am, causing nightmares and feeding off of innocent people’s dreams. I was capable of killing people. I was a parasite. I was a monster.

Right then and there, I vowed to myself I’d never feed off of people.

I’d rather suffer through painsomnia again than cause harm to innocent humans.

I get the feeling, though, that the creepy voice inside my head won’t let me starve myself.


End file.
